


Lip Lock

by liquemortem



Category: Carry On - Rainbow Rowell
Genre: Angst, Fluff, M/M, Slow Burn-ish, SnowBaz, True Love, bent universe?, but baz hasn’t admitted to himself that he loves simon so its not the same, like its not enough to be considered an au
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-04-25
Updated: 2018-10-18
Packaged: 2019-04-27 21:29:18
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 5
Words: 20,795
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14434458
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/liquemortem/pseuds/liquemortem
Summary: In which a certain spell is cast, a certain Chosen One is rendered speechless, and a certain vampire has to solve the situation before it’s too late.(Inspired by cassisluna’s Harry Potter fanfiction: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7086799)





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

  * Inspired by [The Lip-Lock Jinx](https://archiveofourown.org/works/7086799) by [cassisluna](https://archiveofourown.org/users/cassisluna/pseuds/cassisluna). 



> The premise of this story is heavily inspired by cassisluna’s fanfiction “The Lip-Lock Jinx”, which is a Drarry fic I really enjoy. The concept is similar, but the characters, settings, and events are different. The original fic can be found at https://archiveofourown.org/works/7086799. Please support the author!

 

Look. It wasn’t my fault that Simon Snow, the Mage’s Heir, the Chosen One, the greatest mage of our time, could no longer speak.

...Well. Alright. Maybe it was my fault a  _ little  _ bit. But you really can’t blame me for it.

He was  _ annoying  _ me. Always yapping away to that Bunce girl, and always about me. “Baz is plotting,” or “Baz is scheming,” or “Baz sneaks out at night,” or “I think Baz is going to kill me,” or “Baz is a  _ vampire _ .”

He’s not wrong, but still.

And then his sidekick would say something along the lines of “That’s ridiculous, Simon. Of course Baz isn’t plotting/scheming/sneaking out/going to kill you/a vampire. Now drink your tea before it gets cold.”

And he would do it (I swear he’s like a dog trained to act on command), but his eyes would be all narrow and shifty.

And occasionally I would let him catch my eye and I would narrow them right back, just to be difficult, and he would nearly spill tea all down his front.

And then he’d be right back at it with “Penny, didn’t you see that, I swear he just glared at me, Penny, Penny, Merlin’s beard, I’m going to die tonight—“

And Bunce would shoot me a look and I would narrow my eyes at her, too, and she would attempt to calm Simon down. (And Wellbelove would also give me some kind of look, but I tried not to think about that too much. Whatever she thinks might be going on between us is about as potent as Snow’s milk-diluted tea.)

And that night Snow would stare me down as we prepared for bed and I would pretend to ignore him and he would go to sleep and I would watch his anxious breaths even out into a slow, heavy rhythm.

This was just the way things worked. He would throw wild accusations at me, hoping for something to stick. I would pretend they weren’t all true. Occasionally I would antagonize him, for fun, and he would get all flustered and blushy and narrow his eyes at me. (He does that a lot. I think he might need glasses.)

It was more fun when we were kids, I think, because I could really get a rise out of him then. He once actually accused me of being Satan. I spelled my eyes red for the next week after that, just to mess with him.

Also, it was  _ easier _ when we were kids. It was mostly physical: we would get into fistfights and wrestling matches on the green, always ready to tear each other apart. He would bleed and bruise, and I wouldn't, and he would get mad at me and I would get mad at him and we’d be back at it again. It was simple. It was reliable. It was effective.

Now, it’s all politics and mind games. How to get at him without  _ really  _ getting at him. Trying not to hurt him—not now, anyway. Because one day we know we’re going to destroy each other.

Waiting, stalling, biding our time until that moment.

Ah, but I digress.

The day I stopped Simon Snow’s voice was already a pretty bad day. I had slipped on the muddy rugby pitch and gotten muck all down my front. Usually I’m not half so clumsy, but I caught Snow staring at me and got caught up in shooting him a dirty look. I expected him to start laughing at me, but when I got up he was looking at me with what almost seemed to be genuine concern on his face.

I think that made my blood boil more than him laughing would have.

Then, in Magic Words with Possibelf, I was so distracted that I couldn’t cast a fire spell.

A  _ fire  _ spell. From Tyrannus Basilton Grimm- _ Pitch _ . Honestly.

And then, of course, Snow’s magic went haywire. He ended up catching himself on fire and exploding Gareth’s water bottle, which went all over me. For the second time that day, I was covered in an unwelcome substance, and for the second time that day, it was Snow’s fault.

Dinner was the final straw.

There he was, as always, talking Wellbelove and Bunce’s ears off while I was trying to enjoy my beef stroganoff. “He’s been  _ looking  _ at me,” he was complaining, probably louder than he meant it to be. (Everything about Snow is probably louder than he means it to be.) “He stares at me, all day. And I think he actually growled at me today.”

“That’s nice, Simon.”

“Penny. You’re not listening.”

“Sure I am. Baz is up to something.”

“You’re just saying that because that’s what I always say.”

“Well, yes.”

Wellbelove sipped her water and stared at me.

“I’m serious, Pen. Did you see him trip out on the rugby pitch today? He looked right at me as he did it. Like he wanted me to see. And today during Magic Words, he wouldn’t cast the fire spell we were supposed to be working on. I think he was making fun of me.”

For the record: No, I was  _ not  _ making fun of him. Even I don’t make fun of people who naturally have less—or, in Snow’s case, just  _ weirder _ —magic ability than others.

“Maybe he just couldn’t cast the spell,” Penny suggested.

“It was a fire spell. He’s a  _ Pitch _ . I’ve seen him cast it a billion times before.”

I don’t know why, but that got me really fired up again.

I don’t think Snow had even gotten to the “plotting” part of his accusation before I had stood up and smoothly stormed out of the dining hall.

I could feel eyes on me, but I didn’t turn around. I stepped out into the cool December air—of course it was bloody snowing, the grounds looking like a perfect winter wonderland—and began walking home. I felt weirdly hot for having no blood. I was already planning how I would sneak out to the catacombs that night to feed, or maybe I could just stop by now—

“Baz!”

I instinctively spun at my name.

Aleister Crowley, he  _ followed  _ me.

There he was, his hair being blown apart by the wind, his nose and cheeks already glowing pink, his eyes squinted against the weather. Honestly, I was a little surprised Bunce and Wellbelove had let him just get up and leave.

“Baz, where the hell are you going?”

I didn’t want to answer him. I turned back around and started walking away, hoping against hope that he would just turn around and go back to dinner and leave me alone. 

But no. Not Simon Fucking Snow.

“Hey, I’m talking to you!” He sprinted to catch up to me, his warm breath clouding in the air.

“Go away, Snow,” I said, picking up my pace a little. 

“Not until you tell me what you’re doing.”

I glanced over at him. The sleeves of his shirt were cuffed up to his elbows—and he wasn’t wearing a coat. He had probably sprinted off after me without it, the dolt.

“Honestly, Snow. You’re going to freeze to death. Go back to the dining hall.”

“ _ No. _ ” He stepped in front of me, blocking my path. His knobby hands were curled into fists at his sides, and I couldn’t tell whether his face was bright red from the cold or from anger. “No. I’m not moving until you tell me where you’re going.”

I rolled my eyes. “I’m going to go suck the blood out of a couple of rats.”

It was the truth, but I’ve discovered that the truth presented in a ridiculous  setting seems like a lie. 

Simon set his jaw and narrowed his eyes. “Don’t play games with me.”

“I’m not.”

“I’m not going to let you go anywhere. I’ll stay right here all night if I need to.”

“Fine,” I said, rolling my eyes again. “Then I guess you’ll freeze.”

He straightened. “I’ll fight you.”

I cocked a brow. “The Mage’s Heir, threatening with violence? How unchivalrous of you.”

“I’m serious,” he said, drawing his right hand to the opposite hip. “If you won’t tell me what you’re doing, you’re a potential threat.”

“This is ridiculous.”

He narrowed his eyes. “Test me.”

I narrowed my eyes right back and took a step forward.

He began chanting the incantation for the Sword of Mages.

I know he probably wouldn’t have actually gone through with it. He probably wouldn’t have fought me. He was probably just bluffing.

But I couldn’t be sure.

I didn’t know how to stop him. I didn’t want to physically touch him in any way—he was probably already freezing, and my ice-cold skin wouldn’t have helped. Besides, we weren’t eleven anymore. I could do serious damage to him, and despite him being obnoxious and a total git, I didn’t want to hurt him unless I absolutely had to. Really, I just had to get him to stop talking.

So I used the first spell that came to my mind.

“ **Lip Lock** !”

Alright. I guess I should explain the spell, since it’s not all that common.

I found it in one of the books in our library back home. Apparently, it’s used to shut someone up, literally. They can open their mouth to eat and breathe and whatever, but the moment they try to speak, it clamps shut. It’s not a dark spell—well, I don’t think so, at least—and as far as I know, there’s only one way to reverse it.

You have to kiss the person you love the most.

Crowley. Yeah. I know. It sounds fucking stupid. But I wasn’t really thinking about the consequences of the spell at the time. I was just trying to get him to stop talking. In hindsight, I probably could have used  **Shut the front door** or something like that, but I didn’t.

I used  **Lip Lock** .

I’d never used it before. Honestly, I don’t even know why that was the first one that came into my head. It wasn’t one that we’d learned in school. It wasn’t one that I’d practiced. I’d researched it pretty extensively, but I’d never had any experience with it. 

But it worked.

Snow jerked like he’d been struck and stumbled back, falling into the blanket of white on the ground. He rolled over onto his stomach, coughing, his hands and legs creating imprints in the snow. 

I didn’t know what to do.

I didn’t want to go over to him, or get any nearer than I already was—he’d probably punch me, the git. I couldn’t do anything but watch with bated breath as he slowly got back up to his feet. He stared at me, his chest heaving with every breath. His mouth opened a little wider as he sucked in a gulp of air—

And then immediately snapped shut.

His eyes flared with panic as he tried without success to pry open his mouth. I watched, my body frozen and my breathing too quick. It was too similar to last time, when Fiona had given me that tape recorder and I had accidentally stolen that girl Philippa’s voice. That horrible squeak, like her words were being ripped out of her throat. I never forgot it. I still feel terrible about that incident. She never did come back to Watford.

Oh, fuck.

I might have just ruined Simon Snow.

Simon Snow, the Chosen One, the Greatest Mage, whose magic relies on his ability to speak. Simon Snow, who is my worst enemy. Simon Snow, who’s destined to save the World of Mages. Simon Snow, who’s destined to destroy me. 

Oh,  _ fuck. _

He couldn’t speak, but his eyes conveyed exactly what he was trying to say:  _ What the hell did you just do to me? _

I snapped back into the present, shaking the panic out of my head. “We have to get to the dorms. Now.” I grabbed his arm and dragged him towards Mummers House.

He snatched his wrist back from me, the disgust clear on his face. He tried to speak again, but his mouth remained closed.

“We have to  _ fix this _ ,” I said. “Besides, we can get you something to write on so you don’t have to just stare at me like an idiot.”

He flashed me a rude gesture.

“Creative,” I said, raising an eyebrow at him. “Come on.”

I lead him back to Mummers House—he wouldn’t go unless I stayed exactly where he could see me—and we made our way up to the dorm. Snow immediately retrieved a piece of paper and a pen and started scribbling. I sat on my bed and watched him do it—watched the way his tongue stuck out between his lips, the way his hair fell forward over his eyes, the way his eyes moved furiously back and forth, the way his knobby hands gripped the pen, the way he would occasionally pause and blink a few times when he thought about what he wanted to write next.

The way he glanced up and glared at me every now and again, red hot anger making his eyes too sharp.

Finally, he shoved a piece of paper at me, his face bright red. I squinted, trying to read his messy writing:

_ What the hell did you do to me?????? Why can’t I talk? What spell did you use? Where did you learn it? Where were you going, really? Why wouldn’t you just tell me? HOW DO WE FIX THIS?????? _

“You really like question marks,” I remarked, glancing up at him. He shot me a look. “Fine. Hmm… Well, I think it’s pretty obvious that I stopped you from speaking. I’m not going to tell you the spell, because I don’t want you to use it. I learned it from… well, I guess I shouldn’t tell you that either. I’m still not going to tell you where I was going, because it’s none of your business and I don’t want you following me everywhere. And there  _ is  _ a way we can fix this,” I said, handing the paper back to him, “but you’re not going to like it.”

He listed his head.

I took a breath. “You have to kiss the person you love most.”

I don’t know what I expected as a response—panic? anger? maybe a punch in the face?—but it definitely wasn’t a simple nod of the head.  _ That’s easy, _ he wrote.  _ Agatha _ .

I blinked. “That was… fast.” 

He shrugged and went back to writing.  _ So I just have to kiss her? That’s it? _

“That’s it,” I said, “as far as I know.”

_ Why a kiss? Doesn’t that seem a little too Disney Princess? _

“Fuck, Snow, I don’t know. I didn’t make the spell.”

_ Well, yeah, I know that—actually, I guess I didn’t—but why that curse? Why one that can only be reversed by a kiss? _

“Er,” I said, “to mess with you. Of course. Why else would I take your voice?”

He scowled as he wrote, like he was expecting a different answer.

_ I can go now. To kiss her, I mean. Agatha. I think dinner’s still happening. _

“Fantastic,” I said. “Go on, then.”

He nodded and stood to leave, but paused. He sunk back down and scribbled something more on his paper. 

_ I’m sorry I pushed you about where you were going. _

I nearly laughed. “Apologizing for stalking me? You’ve certainly grown a lot since fifth year.”

He scowled for real and snatched the paper back, turning to leave.

“Hey,” I said, grabbing his attention. “I… Crowley, Snow, I can’t believe I’m saying this. I’m sorry too. For, you know, taking your voice and everything. That crossed a line.”

He raised an eyebrow and wrote,  _ You tried to kill me fourth year. _

“The chimaera barely scorched you,” I argued.

_ And you tried to take my voice third year, too. _

“You have no proof,” I said, but I could hear Philippa’s horrible squeak even as I said it.

_ Well,  _ wrote Snow,  _ alright. I don’t forgive you, but at least you’re apologizing. _

“Gee,” I drawled, “thanks.”

He smirked and made to leave.

“Oh, and Snow.”

He half turned.

“Grab a coat. You’ll turn into a popsicle before you even get there.”

I waited for him to come back, but he stayed out for a few hours. I wondered how long it took to get your girlfriend to kiss you—since I’d never had one, I wouldn’t know. Did it really take hours? Or was Snow just that bad at it?

I ended up falling into a still, dreamless sleep around midnight, but was rudely awoken to the slamming of a door, my covers being thrown off of me (it’s a good thing I don’t sleep naked), and a piece of paper being shoved in my face.

_ You’re a fucking liar. _

Snow stood above my bed, his face scrunched into an expression of absolute fury. 

I sat up, stretching my neck, and blinked at him. “What? It didn’t work?”

_Not even close._ _I tried SEVEN TIMES._

“TMI, Snow.” I swung my legs over the side of the bed. “So, Wellbelove isn’t the person you love most. Big surprise there. Just keep kissing people until you can talk again.”

_ Or _ , he wrote, his already-messy handwriting nearly illegible with rage,  _ you lied to me.  _

“I didn’t lie,” I said. “The only way to reverse the spell is through a kiss.”

_ I don’t believe you _ .

“Fine,” I said, “don’t. But it’s the truth.”

_ I asked Penny what spell you might have used. She doesn’t know of any kind of spell that requires a kiss to break. She said it sounds like you made it up. _

“I’m  _ not lying _ .”

_ Then tell me what spell you used. _

“I can’t. You’ll use it against me.”

_ I won’t, I promise. It’ll probably just backfire, anyway.  _

He did have a point, but I wasn’t giving up. “Well, then you’ll just get Bunce to use it for you. I can’t trust you.”

_ And I can’t trust YOU. We’re at an impasse. _

I crossed my ankles. “It doesn’t matter to  _ me _ . You’re the one who can’t speak. You have everything to lose, and I have nothing. I have the upper hand.”

He clenched his jaw and stared down at the paper, his knuckles white around his pen. I watched his profile, watched his jaw muscle twitch, watched his Adam’s apple bob as he swallowed. 

_ I hate you _ , he wrote.  _ But I don’t have another option. Please. _

I slid the paper back and stared at my hands—my pale, lean hands, which seemed too dead next to his tanned ones. “Lip Lock,” I said without magic. “That’s the spell.”

I glanced over and could see him mulling it over in his head, analyzing it.  _ It’s a pun _ , he wrote.

“Most spells are puns, Snow.”

He frowned.  _ No, I know, but… This one seems almost too perfect. Like you made it up. _

I rolled my eyes. “Honestly, Snow. You ask me to tell you the spell I used to prove I wasn’t lying, and then you accuse me of lying about the spell. I don’t know how to please you.”

_ Fine,  _ he scribbled.  _ Then let’s go to the library. _

“ _ What _ ?”

_ If you can show me the spell in a book, you can prove to me that it exists. Therefore—library. _

“Uh, no. It’s the middle of the night. Normal people  _ sleep  _ around this time. Besides, we’ll be caught, and I have a spotless conduct record so far. I’m not about to ruin it to prove something to you.”

_ You sneak out in the middle of the night all the time. _

“I sneak out  _ alone _ . Not with a bumbling Chosen One.”

_ Baz, you’re the one who did this to me. You’re responsible for fixing it. _

“No, I’m not.”

_ Yes, you are. _

“I’m going to sleep,” I said, turning onto my side and closing my eyes.

Snow huffed and got up. I couldn’t see him, but I could imagine his face: his sloped nose scrunched, his rosy lips puckered into a scowl, his tawny hair inevitably mussed as he pulled on his jacket. I heard the front door open, heard him step out into the hall, heard the door close behind him.

Fine. Whatever. If he wanted to get caught researching something he didn’t believe existed, he could be my guest. It’s not like I cared. It would actually probably benefit me. He could get into serious trouble with his precious Mage, which was fine by me. And even if he somehow wasn’t caught (he does have unnaturally good luck), he probably wouldn’t be able to find anything about the curse. I just happened to find it while looking through some ancient books at home, but finding more information on it was quite the challenge. I had to translate from German to get most of the details, and Crowley knows Snow doesn’t speak a lick of anything other than English. And even if he made it to the library and back, and miraculously found all the information he needed, the chances of him reversing the spell were small at best. If it didn’t work when he kissed Agatha, his pious, devoted-given-there-were-no-present-vampires girlfriend, then it wasn’t going to work, period. Maybe Penny, but aside from that, there weren’t a lot of options. Snow was rather alone for being the messiah of the magical world. And I was better off if he didn’t fix the spell. Snow was constantly too loud; not being able to speak would probably help him. And not being able to speak means not being able to do magic, which would make him less of a danger to himself and others. He could even be expelled—after all, what’s the point of staying at Watford if you can’t do magic? And I would be so much better off that way. I’ve always dreamed of having the room to myself; finally,  _ finally, _ I wouldn’t be confined to just one half of it. And there would be no more tripping on the rugby pitch or getting exploded on by a water bottle. No more wild but true accusations of my apparent vampirism. No more bombardment of questions every time I came back to the room a little late. No more interruptions during dinner because I could hear Snow whining about me. No more weird, too-potent spells destroying the grounds or nearly catching me on fire. He could get kicked out of Watford for that, too—for not being able to perform magic at all. No more Greatest Mage. No more Mage’s Heir. No more Chosen One. No more savior of the World of Mages. 

No more Simon Snow.

“Ah, shit,” I said, grabbing my coat and running out of the flat.

I’m not stupid. I know there’s a war coming. I know that Simon Snow is my greatest enemy. I know that he’s going to kill me, one day. I know.

But I also know that the Insidious Humdrum—which I think is a horrible name, by the way—is a real threat. It sucks up magic like it can’t get enough. It sends monsters and demons to Watford. It causes real destruction and terror.

And the only person that can stop it is Simon Snow. And I’m not about to become responsible for the fall of the World of Mages.

So there I was, trekking through the snow at two in the morning, chasing after the hero of the century to make sure he didn’t get himself expelled, trying to avoid getting caught myself, and cursing myself for getting into the situation in the first place.

The library wasn’t that far away from the dorms, and Snow had left a pretty clear track as to where he was (he’s rather heavy-footed), so I got to the old building within a few minutes. It was cold enough, though, that I was at the point of shivering once I got inside. (Contrary to popular belief—yes, vampires can feel cold and shiver and get frostbite and all of that. We’re just more tolerable to it than normal humans. I don’t know how Snow can stand to be outside without a coat, or why he would choose to. He’s just that stupid, I guess.)

The Watford library isn’t somewhere I go a lot—we probably have a bigger collection at home—but I’d been there enough to know where to find Snow: second floor, ninth aisle, under “Curses/Jinxes/Hexes”. And indeed, there he was, madly flipping through a textbook, his eyes wide and frantically scanning the pages.

“ _ Wacky Wizard Tricks to Foil Your Enemy: Volume Three _ ?” I said, bending down to read the cover of the book. “Seriously, Snow? You think  _ that’s  _ where I’d find the spell?” 

He just frowned at me.

“Ah,” I said. “You don’t have the paper with you.”

He went back to the book.

“Snow. How can I prove to you that I’m not lying?”

Snapped the book closed. Shoved it back onto the shelf. Grabbed another one.

“ _ Snow. _ ”

He glared at me.

“I want to help you. Really, I do. But you have to  _ trust me. _ ”

His mouth tightened into a firm line. 

“I found the spell in a book at home. It probably wouldn’t be at the Watford library, anyway—“

He shoved the book into my chest.

I closed it enough to read the cover: **_On Love’s Light Wings_** _,_ ** _Don’t Tread On Me_** _,_ _and Other Spells for the Advanced Magick User._ The page he had flipped to held the following entry:

‘ **_Lip Lock_ ** _ is an extremely advanced and dangerous spell that should only be cast by the most talented wizards. It causes its victim to become mute; their mouth shuts every time they attempt to speak. The only way to reverse the hex is for the victim to receive a kiss from their true love. However, the spell does have a catch: if the victim cannot reverse the spell within seventy-two hours of it being cast, the effects become permanent and the victim will never speak again. Because of this complication, this spell is widely considered too dangerous for teaching at schools or for use by ordinary wizards. (For examples of this spell’s use throughout history and a brief summary of its etymology, see the Appendix.)’ _

“Oh,” I said. “Oh fuck.”

Snow’s eyes were blazing.

“I didn’t—I didn’t know about the complications,” I said. Panic was rising in my chest, suffocating me, settling in my middle like a weight. It was too close to last time, too much like what happened to Philippa, too similar to the guilt I felt when she had to be taken away, when she never came back to Watford. “I—Snow—I didn’t—I wouldn’t have… If I’d known, I never would have cast the spell. Honestly.”

His nostrils flared. He wouldn’t look at me. He seemed on the verge of tears.

“Let me help you.”

His jaw clenched.

“I cast the spell at… eight o’clock? And it’s about two now. That’s six hours. We only have sixty-six left to find your true love, convince her to kiss you, and break the spell. You can try to do it by yourself… or you can accept my help and we can figure this out together.”

He snatched back the book, closed it, and traced three letters on its cover:

_ W. H. Y. _

I sucked in a breath. “Because,” I said, “I feel bad. And I don’t want you to lose your voice forever. And… And whether I like it or not, you’re supposed to save the World of Mages. And you can’t do that unless you can talk.

_ U. H. 8. M. E. _

“Yeah,” I said. “But despite what you might think of me, I do have a soul. I think.”

He stared at the cover for a long time, his brow furrowed, his lips puckered.  _ OK,  _ he traced. 

I let out a breath I hadn’t been aware I was holding.

“Great,” I said. “Now let’s get back to the dorms. If we’ve only got sixty-six hours left, we’re going to need all the sleep we can get.”

 


	2. Chapter 2

Snow was gone when I woke up the next morning, but cornered me at breakfast, sitting down across from me at my table and handing me a sheet of lined notebook paper.

_We have about sixty hours left. I tried Agatha again, but it still didn’t work. I don’t know why. Are you sure there’s no variation to the spell? One where it isn’t “true love’s kiss”, but something else?_

“There’s no variant,” I said, warming my freezing hands with my cup of coffee. “If Agatha didn’t work, then she’s not your true love. Sorry,” I added, seeing his shoulders fall. (Honestly, though, I can’t believe he didn’t see it coming. She spends almost as much time looking at me as he does.)

 _Okay,_ he wrote, _so not Agatha. As much as that doesn’t make sense. Who else?_

I pursed my lips. “Well… I assume you don’t have any other girlfriends? No affairs? No mistresses? No lingering one night stands?”

He shot me a look.

“Just covering all our bases. Hmmm… The spell doesn’t specify that the love has to be romantic. Maybe a close friend? Or family member?”

_Penny’s my best friend. And the Mage is the closest thing I have to family._

“Ah. Bunce, we might be able to convince, but I can’t see the Mage agreeing to plant one on you.”

_He might, if he knew it would help me._

But even as he wrote it, he looked unsure.

“Well,” I said, “we’ll save it for a plan B. For now, let’s focus on our other options. Do you have anyone else that you trust? That you love?”

 _Penny and Agatha are my closest friends. If it’s not Penny… There’s no one else, really. I mean, I guess the Bunces and the Wellbeloves are almost like family to me, but I can’t see any of them being my true_ _love. And I don’t really have any other friends._

“You’re the Chosen One,” I said, cocking an eyebrow. “People love you, right?”

_I’m the Chosen One, Baz. People sort of hate me._

“Oh. Well, then I guess we have our work cut out for us.” I peeked over his shoulder—and yes, sitting next to Wellbelove at their usual table, hiding behind a muffin and pretending not to stare at us, was Bunce. “Your sidekick’s over there, if you want to do it now.”

He nodded and moved to stand, but paused halfway up. Sinking back into the chair, he scribbled something more down onto the notebook paper:

_What if it doesn’t work?_

“Why wouldn’t it? She’s your closest friend. You said it yourself.”

 _Agatha didn’t work, and she’s my_ _girlfriend_ .

I blinked. “Well… Agatha isn't your true love. Bunce could be. You always did seem closer to her than to Wellbelove. And if, for whatever reason, it really doesn’t work…” I swallowed. “I don’t know. We’ll figure it out.”

He nodded again and stood, flashing me a grim smile as he walked over to the table where he usually sat. Bunce was on his case immediately; even from across the room, I could see the curiosity saturating her face as she watched Snow scribble something on the paper. I sipped my coffee, quietly observing as the girl furrowed her brow, reading what Simon had written. Wellbelove peered over the table to see it, but gave up after a moment, evidently unable to read his writing. Bunce looked at me, then at Snow, then said something I couldn’t make out, then leaned over and planted a kiss on his lips.

Wellbelove hastily stood and flew out of the dining hall, but I couldn’t see why. There was no passion or heat behind the kiss; it almost seemed to be a kiss between family members more than between lovers. It was over in a second, and Snow opened his mouth to say something, his shoulders rising slightly as he filled his lungs with air—

His mouth snapped shut with such force that Bunce jumped back.

Snow’s shoulders shook, his face flushing a bright pink, as he threw back his chair and stomped over to where I was sitting. Bunce was not far behind, having picked up the pencil and paper that Snow forgot.

“You cursed him,” she said as soon as she was close enough for me to hear. Snow stood beside her, his eyes glowing like coals.

“Yeah,” I said.

“And the only way to break the curse is for his true love to kiss him.”

“Yeah.”

“And it’s not Agatha. And it’s not me.”

“Yeah.”

“And we only have a limited amount of time to figure out who his true love actually is, or Simon’s going to lose his voice forever.”

“Yeah.”

“Hm,” she said. “One more question.”

“Sure.”

“Why are you helping him?”

“I—uh.” I hesitated. “It’s my fault he can’t speak. I feel like I’m responsible. I want to make things right.”

“But doesn’t it benefit you if he can’t speak? Wouldn’t it help you if the Greatest Mage can’t do magic?”

“Contrary to apparent popular belief,” I drawled, regaining some of the poise that had wavered a moment earlier, “I do have a conscience. Besides, if Snow’s really going to save the World of Mages and defeat the Humdrum, then I don’t want to stand in the way of that. I won’t be responsible for the apocalypse.”

Bunce narrowed her eyes at me, but said, “Fine. Then let me help. You two are probably going to tear each other apart if I’m not there. Besides, three is better than two, and you need all the brainpower you can get.”

“Fine,” I said. “But the only other person we can think of that could possibly work is the Mage. Unless you can come up with someone else, we’re kind of stuck.”

“Oh,” she said, raising an eyebrow and scanning my face, “I’m sure I can think of another one.”

“Great,” I said. “Welcome to the team, Bunce.”

***

One of the things we neglected to consider is how we were going to cover for Snow in classes.

Since we went to a _magic school_ that relied on _words_ as a part of _every class_ , this proved to be a little bit more difficult than we thought it was going to be. Bunce suggested that we just say that Snow had laryngitis and wasn’t supposed to speak (not the strongest cover story, but it worked all the same), and luckily enough either Bunce or I was in every one of Snow’s classes to explain away any questions, but he was still fuming all day because he couldn’t participate in any of the class activities. He mostly sat there at his desk, doodling on his paper and glaring at me.

Honestly. He can’t even cast spells right when he _can_ speak. He wasn’t missing out on much.

His staring did mess me up a few times. I couldn’t shake the feeling of his eyes watching me, tracing my every movement, judging every time I cast a spell or gave an answer in class. Every time I glanced over at him, I would catch him glancing away from me. I guess he was just that angry at me that he couldn’t get me out of his head.

Bunce was also acting weird. There were a couple of classes that she, Snow, and I all had together, and whenever those classes came around, she would keep glancing over at Snow and me—well, at me particularly, I guess—and squint like she was trying to figure out some sort of puzzle. I didn’t know what her problem was. I didn’t care to know.

We each kept individualized lists of who could possibly be Snow’s true love. I saw Bunce writing a lot on hers, but Snow seemed completely stuck, as was I. It wasn’t Wellbelove or Bunce, and I couldn’t think of another option. Who else was Snow close to? Who else did Snow hang out with enough to constitute as his true love?

I sincerely doubted it was the Mage. I couldn’t imagine them having so close of a relationship for it to be considered love in any way. I didn’t think it was anyone outside of Watford, either; Snow didn’t really have any family or friends outside of the school. So it would have to be a student that Snow spent a lot of time with and that he felt a connection to, that wasn’t Bunce or Wellbelove, that we could somehow convince to kiss him…

Yeah, I had nothing.

We reconvened after dinner in our flat. Bunce managed to somehow get past the wards against girls—I didn’t even want to know how—and we had floated up a spare chalkboard from one of the classrooms so that Simon could communicate without having to pass around a piece of paper.

“I brainstormed everyone I could think of,” said Bunce, flipping to her two-page list. “I know some of them might seem unlikely, but I figured it’d be better to have too many options than too few.”

Snow and I glanced at each other.

“Er,” I said, “I couldn’t really come up with anybody.”

He nodded his ditto.

“Honestly, you two.” Bunce rolled her eyes and plunked down onto Snow’s bed. “Well, alright. I guess I’ll go ahead, then. Firstly: Agatha.”

“We _tried_ her.”

“I know, but I had a thought. What if it’s not enough for Simon’s true love to kiss him? What if they have to _mean_ it?”

 _Are you saying Agatha didn’t mean it?_ Snow wrote, slightly offended.

“Well,” she said, “maybe not. How did you kiss her? Was it a real kiss? Or was it just to help you? Did she seem into it?”

“Crowley, Bunce. You don’t ask someone if their girlfriend seemed into making out with them. There’s a line.”

Snow shot separate looks to both of us as he wrote, _Yes, she seemed into it. I didn’t even tell her that it was to break a spell._

“She didn’t notice that you weren’t speaking at all?”

Simon only shrugged.

Bunce scratched out the name on her list. “So it’s not Agatha.”

“What about you? Did you mean your kiss?”

“Of course I did,” she said, almost offended. “I’m not in love with Simon, but my kiss was genuine.”

_Thanks, Penny._

“No problem. Anyway, the next person is the Mage.”

_I think he’s it._

“I don’t,” I said. “Snow, when was the last time you _talked_ to the Mage?”

He went to write something, but hesitated, like he was second-guessing himself.

“That’s what I’m saying. You and the Mage don’t have close enough of a relationship for him to be your true love. We can keep it as a possibility, but I don’t think he’s the answer.”

“Fine,” Bunce said, marking something on her paper. “Let’s keep moving.”

Most of her list was comprised of various classmates that Snow was acquaintances with, but we all agreed that most of them were kind of a stretch. It seemed like Bunce had written down every student that Snow had ever had so much as a conversation with.

“Okay,” she said once we had reached the end of the list. “There’s one more, but, uh, just remember that we need to consider _all_ of our options, and honestly this probably shouldn’t even be on the list—“

“Bunce. Spit it out.”

“I… It’s you, Baz.”

Snow dropped his chalk.

“Nope,” I said. If I had blood, my face would have been scarlet.

“Okay,” Bunce said, nodding and closing her notebook. “That means we’re back to square one—“

The chalk had been picked up and I could hear Snow scribbling away on the chalkboard, but I didn’t look over to see what he was writing.

“If it’s not the Mage,” Bunce continued, glancing over at Snow in alarm, “then, uh, we should… Simon!”

He ended his sentence with a flourish and glared at Bunce and me.

 _Okay, first off, Baz is_ _not_ _my true love. We’re not even friends. He’s going to_ _kill_ me _. But that gave me an idea. The thing I love most in the world—the thing I keep coming back to, despite my vampire roommate and nearly being murdered every year and sucking at magic—is Watford. Watford is my true love. It has_ _to be._

“Snow,” I said slowly, “Watford’s a _group of buildings._ ”

He shot me a look.

“He has a point, Simon,” said Bunce. “How are you supposed to kiss a school?”

_God, I don’t know. But my true love pretty obviously isn’t a person, and I can’t think of another possibility._

“I can assure you your true love is not a _school_.”

“Baz.”

“What, Bunce?”

“Be nice. You were the one who cursed him.”

I rolled my neck. “Well. Either the Chosen One is destined to be forever alone, or he has an actual, real, living, breathing, _human_ soulmate. If he ever wants to speak again, I suggest he starts leaning towards the latter. And _don’t_ ,” I growled as his chalk tapped against the board, “try to argue with me. Watford being your true love is a nice idea, but ‘nice’ doesn’t break the spell.”

Snow looked to Bunce.

“I—uh.” She blinked. “I hate to admit it, but he’s sort of right.”

 _Great,_ he wrote, his other hand balling into a fist. _So I’m screwed._

“Only a little bit,” said Bunce, tucking her notebook under her arm and standing. “We’ll reconvene tomorrow. We have—er, what time is it now?”

“Ten o’clock.”

“Right. We’ve got about forty-six hours left. We can do this.”

Snow didn’t look so sure, but he nodded all the same.

“I’ll see you two tomorrow,” Bunce said, walking to the door but stalling in the frame. “Get some sleep, Simon, and don’t worry about this too much. We’ll figure it out.”

He nodded again, seeming a little bit more genuine this time, and Bunce closed the door behind her.

I watched as my roommate cleared the board with his sleeve, getting chalk all over his sweater. “You could use magic for that,” I said.

He paused, picking the chalk back up. I couldn’t see his face, but his jaw twitched as he wrote, _I can’t use magic. I don’t have a voice._

“ **Blank slate** ,” I said with magic, and all traces of chalk disappeared from the board. Snow gave me a look that was somewhere between grateful and murderous.

I rolled my eyes and sat down on my bed. “You’re welcome.”

He didn’t look at me as he went into the bathroom to change into his pajamas.

I pursed my lips, considering the options moving forward. Wellbelove and Bunce weren’t it. It wasn’t _Watford_ —honestly, how could he have thought that was a good idea? The Mage was seeming like our final option. Well, except for…

No, I decided. Absolutely not. Penny had only put my name on the list as a last resort, as a wild guess, as a far reach. I was Snow’s worst enemy. There was no _way_ I was his true love. I wasn’t even his friend.

But still, I couldn’t get the thought out of my head.

Snow came back into the bedroom, his hair slightly wet around where he had washed his face. He still didn’t spare me so much as a glance as he wheeled the chalkboard out of the way.

A thought struck me suddenly.

“I have a question,” I said.

He looked at the newly cleaned board and winced.

“I can clean it again,” I offered. “This is important.”

He sighed through his nose and picked up the chalk.

“Is Wellbelove going to help break the curse?”

He shook his head.

“Why?”

He shrugged.

“Honestly, Snow. I’m going to need more of a response than that.”

 _Why should I answer?_ he wrote. _Why should I tell you anything?_

“Because I’m trying to help you,” I said. “Because you need me. And because another person on the team could help us solve the riddle faster.”

He bit his lip as he wrote. _She’s not helping us because I haven’t told her._

“Why?”

_I’ve told her about the spell, obviously. She’d have noticed I wasn’t speaking. But how well do you think she’d take it if I told her that she wasn’t my true love? She’d want to break up with me._

“But she isn’t your true love. Don’t you want to break up with her?”

His hair fell over his eyes as he scribbled, _I don’t know._

I raised a brow but decided not to press. “Is she mad at you?”

_Why would you think that?_

“Today at breakfast—when Bunce kissed you, she just got up and left. She looked pretty pissed off.”

 _She’s…_ He paused here, as though searching for the right phrasing to use. _She’s a little jealous. About my friendship with Penny. She knows I’m closer to Penny than I am to her._

“Should she be? Jealous, I mean?”

_No._

“Oh,” I said. “Are you going to tell her eventually? That Bunce only kissed you to break a spell?”

He didn’t write anything.

“Snow?”

 _Yes,_ he wrote. _Eventually._

“Yes. Yes, good.”

Neither of us knew quite what to say after that.

“Well,” I said, “we should probably get some sleep.”

Snow nodded. I cleared the board again and turned off the light as we got into our respective beds.

But I didn’t sleep that night, and I’m sure he didn’t, either.


	3. Chapter 3

“That’s it,” Bunce said the next morning at breakfast, dragging Simon behind her and plopping down at my table. “We’ve got to try the Mage.”

“We’ve already talked about why it _can’t_ be the Mage,” I countered, leaning back in my chair and crossing my legs. “There’s no point in following that line of thought.”

“I don’t know what else to do,” she said. “I can’t think of anybody else it could be.”

Snow started to write something on his paper.

“Don’t say Watford,” I told him.

Snow scratched out what he had been writing.

“Look,” said Bunce. “I drove myself mad last night trying to think of someone else who could be Snow’s true love. _There is no one else._ It’s not Agatha. It’s not me. The only other option is—“

She stopped very suddenly, as though an idea had crossed her mind.

Snow tugged on her sleeve, his face hungry.

Bunce stared at the table, her eyes flicking back and forth like she was reading something. She glanced at me, then at Snow, then back at me.

“What, Bunce?”

“I—no,” she said, shaking her head but still staring at me. “It… It’s nothing. I thought I had… No. It wouldn’t work.”

Snow furrowed his brow, but nodded. I narrowed my eyes. “If you have an idea, you should say it.”

“I told you,” she said, “it wouldn’t work—“

But she never got to explain why, because suddenly Snow slammed his hand on the table.

“ _Christ_ ,” I said. “What, Snow?”

_EBB._

I snorted _._ “Ebb?”

“Ebb,” Bunce said, like it was the answer to the puzzle.

“Who is Ebb?”

“The goatherd _._ ”

“Oh,” I said. “I forgot about her.”

 _I can’t believe we didn’t think of her sooner,_ Snow wrote. _She’s one of my best friends. It has to be her._

“You said that about Wellbelove and Bunce too,” I pointed out. “What makes you so confident about Ebb?”

 _I don’t know,_ he scribbled, _but we don’t have another option. And I have a good feeling about this._

“We can go now,” offered Bunce. “Classes don’t start for another half hour. And you can bring a scone,” she said to Snow, who had begun to look at the table of baked goods longingly.

“I’ll stay behind,” I said. “I wanted to do some more research, anyway. We need to know as much as we can about the curse if we’re going to break it.”

“Are you sure?” Bunce asked. “You really want to stay behind?”

I shrugged. “Someone should do it. Besides, it doesn’t take three people to explain to Ebb why she needs to kiss Snow.”

Actually, I’m a little bit afraid of Ebb. She has too much magic for a goatherd. It creeps me out. And I’m a _vampire._

“Fine,” said Bunce, standing. “Simon, grab a scone and let’s go. Baz… We’ll meet up with you later.”

They left, and I waited just a minute after to exit the hall myself. The morning was misty and grey as I trudged through the half-melted snow to the library. I headed for the ninth aisle on the second floor and picked up the same book Snow and I had found before, the one with the definition. I flipped to the Appendix this time, hoping to gather some clues as to how the spell had been used before.

The entry was short: a quick overview of the colloquialism of “lip lock”, and then a brief index of the spell’s use, including the caster, the victim, and the resolution. It was a recent spell—it had only been around since the mid-70s—and the book had been published nearly two decades ago, so there were only three recorded uses of the spell:

_Cast by James Candlish on McKenna Grant (1976)—never broken_

_Cast by Emma Moren on Mitchell Grosse (1986)—never broken_

_Cast by Juanita Sanchez on Yessica Garcia (1990)—never broken_

I furrowed my brow, scanning the entry. That couldn’t be right. There had to be more examples—at least one where the curse was broken. There had to be at least one.

I spent the next twenty minutes pulling books like mad from the shelves, translating from French, German, Cyrillic, and Welsh. I did end up finding a few more examples of uses of the curse, but all of the sources said the same thing.

There had never been any recorded occurrence of someone breaking the spell.

A weight the size of a bowling ball settled in my stomach.

The clock in the library rang nine—time for class. I gathered my notes and stood, trying to stop myself from trembling. Had I really done it? Had I really stopped Snow’s voice—forever?

My mind raced as I went to first period, Greek. We were working on verb conjugations, which I had done about a billion times before, leaving me plenty of room to think—which was good, because I felt like I was imploding on myself. The curse had _never_ been broken. The likelihood that we would be the ones to break the streak felt infinitesimal. If our odds had been grim before, they were slaughtered now. Simon Snow would probably never speak again.

And it was all my fault.

My chest was tight. I’d messed with him before, of course—the chimera, the recorder, and about a billion other examples from our first few years as roommates—but never before had the consequences been so _real_. Snow really might never get his voice back. He might have to live the rest of his life unable to speak, unable to cast a spell, unable to save the world like he’s supposed to. All because I didn’t fucking think before I spoke.

He was sitting in the row in front of me, his bronze hair practically glittering in the morning sun, still doodling on his paper. Little stars and smiley faces and swords, in the margins around his notes and words. I cleared my throat to get his attention and he half turned in his seat.

 _Ebb?_ I mouthed.

He only shook his head.

My stomach withered.

I nodded my head, trying to keep my cool, and he turned back to the front of the room. I couldn’t figure out why I felt so guilty. Wasn’t this what I had always wanted? Snow couldn’t do magic. He couldn’t cast spells. He couldn’t destroy me, like he’d always wanted to. Why wasn’t I happy? Why didn’t I feel like I had won?

Why did I feel so fucking guilty?

Maybe it was just because I hadn’t fed in a while—in the vampiric sense, I mean. The stress over trying to figure out this curse had left me dry two days in a row. I could feel myself growing weaker, growing hungrier. I’d have to go to the Catacombs soon.

But not feeding wouldn’t account for the horrible weight in the pit of my stomach.

I thought about it all morning, but I still couldn’t figure it out by lunch, when the three of us reconvened to share notes. Bunce brought up a bundle of sandwiches to the dorm, and we sat around the room, eating and discussing.

“I didn’t explain the full situation,” Bunce said, picking apart her turkey and cheese, Snow happily chomping into his own at her feet. “Ebb didn’t ask. I just said that Snow was cursed and we were trying all of our options.”

“And it didn’t work?”

Snow tried to speak and let his mouth snap closed.

“Great,” I said. “So we’re back to square one.”

“Not exactly.” Bunce leaned forward from her position on Snow’s bed. “What did you find?”

“Oh,” I said. In trying to figure out everything regarding my emotions—of which there was a _lot_ —I had nearly forgotten about my research from that morning. I dug out my notes and flipped through them. “Well. I found a few examples of the use of the spell—all recent, since it’s a modern phrase—but. Er.”

“What?” asked Bunce.

Snow furrowed his brow at me, his bright blue eyes scanning my face.

“Well. Erm. Based on my research… the spell has never been broken.”

“Oh,” Bunce said quietly.

“Yeah.”

Snow stared at the ground and clenched his jaw.

“Wait,” said Bunce, sitting up a little straighter. “If no one’s ever broken it, then how do they know it can be broken? And how do they know that there’s a seventy-two hour time limit?”

I glanced back down at my notes. “According to a few victim testimonies, there’s a noticeable change after the seventy-two hour mark. One account described it as, uhh… ‘a heavy, thick, permanent sort of seal’ around his throat. He said he knew from that moment that he would never speak again.” I swallowed and looked up. “They only assume it can be broken before then because there’s testimony that it doesn’t feel permanent until that moment.”

“Well… Well, how do they know it’s true love’s kiss that can break it?”

“Because,” I said, “no other kiss does it. We’ve witnessed that firsthand. ‘True love’ is mostly assumed, but it’s the best theory that anyone has been able to come up with.’”

“Oh,” said Bunce again. “Well… At least it can be broken?”

Snow didn’t seem to share her optimism. He stared down at his sandwich, clenching and unclenching his jaw. It almost hurt me to look at him.

“We don’t have time to worry about whether or not it can be broken,” I said, averting my gaze from Simon and sitting up a little straighter. “We need to focus on who’s going to break it.”

Snow kept his eyes down, but Bunce nodded, opening the notebook that she had brought with her. “Right. Well… We know who it’s _not_ , at least. Me, Agatha, and Ebb are all out for sure. And we can assume it’s not any other student. So that leaves the Mage, and—“

“Not Watford,” I said as Snow’s eyes lit up. “Let it _go._ ”

He frowned and resumed glaring at his food.

I cocked my head. “I think the Mage is our best option by this point.”

“I thought you were against us trying the Mage?”

“I was,” I said, “and I still kind of am. But we’re running out of time and out of options. There’s no harm in trying it.”

Bunce pursed her lips. “You have a point. We can try it, as long as Simon’s on board.”

Snow nodded and hopped to it feet, grabbing his chalk nub and scrawling on the blackboard: _Yes, I’m on board. But Baz has to come with me._

“No.”

 _Yes._ _You_ _cursed me—_

I kept talking as he kept writing. “I’m not going to explain to the Mage that _I_ was the one who cursed you—“

_—and I promise that you won’t be expelled—_

“You’re _kidding,_ right? The Mage would have kicked me out years ago if he could have come up with a good enough excuse, and I’m _not_ going to give him one—“

_—and I trust the Mage—_

“A lack of judgment on your part, really—“

_—and I really think he can help us._

“Fuck no,” I said. “Bunce can go. I’m not going to the man who’s had it out to my family for _twenty fucking years_ to tell him that I cursed his precious Heir. No.”

“Baz,” said Bunce, “I think it’s a good idea for you to go.”

“I _knew_ there was a reason I didn’t like you.”

“Hey,” she said, her voice growing sharper. “ _You_ were the one who got us into this mess in the first place. Besides, the Mage is going to find out that you cursed Simon either way. Either I tell him and you look like a coward, or you tell him and take responsibility for your actions.” She leaned back. “It’s your choice.”

Snow’s soulful blue eyes bore into me. I could feel him tracing me, every plane and angle of my face, simultaneously pleading and warning.

“Why?” I breathed. “Why do you _want_ me to come with you? Are you that desperate to see me kicked out of Watford? Are you that willing to throw me to the wolves?”

 _No,_ he wrote, something like hurt flickering across his face. _Of course not. I’m not like you._

“Then why me? Why wouldn’t you want Bunce? Or Wellbelove, even? Why _me_?”

Bunce looked to Snow, her brows furrowed.

He tapped the board with his chalk for a moment, thinking. Then he scrawled, _It’s like Penny said. You’ve already cursed me, and the Mage is going to find out either way. I guess it just feels more right to have you there than anyone else._

I pursed my lips. Something about the situation felt off, but I couldn’t pinpoint exactly what it was. “Fine,” I said. “We can go after supper. But if the Mage tries to kill me, I’m using you as my shield.”

***

Snow and I met by the Weeping Tower that night, after we had both finished with our dinners. I still hadn’t had the chance to feed, and I could almost feel the gnawing hole in my middle growing with each passing minute. I wouldn’t be able to take it much longer.

“You ready?” I asked, stuffing my hands in my pockets. It wasn’t that cold out, but for some reason I was shivering.

He nodded and opened the door, leading me up the winding staircase to the round foyer at the top of the tower. He paused in front of the tall, arched door to the left and looked at me, as if to make sure I was ready.

I took a deep breath. “This is going to be _so_ awkward.”

Snow cracked a smile and knocked on the door.

It popped open—magically, I assumed—and Snow walked into the Mage’s office. I stalled in the doorway, not quite comfortable with entering the room.

I hadn’t been into the office since I was small—since my mother was headmistress. Parts of it were the same, from what little I remembered. It was the same desk, the same carpet, the same wallpaper, the same shelves lined with books around the perimeter of the room. But the curtains seemed darker, and the desk was riddled with what seemed like even more books than those on the shelves. Though most of the furniture was the same, it was my mother’s old room in name only.

The thought of it made my jaw clench.

The Mage was sitting behind the desk, in his ridiculous Robin Hood costume, writing something on a piece of parchment. It took him a moment to finish whatever it was he was writing and look up at Snow, who was standing humbly at the center of the room.

“Simon,” greeted the Mage, standing and walking in front of his desk. “This is a surprise.”

Snow bowed his head a bit and stepped to the side, revealing me in the doorway.

“And… Tyrannus Basilton Grimm-Pitch.” The Mage’s already slightly chilly tone had frozen over entirely. “A surprise indeed.”

“Yes, sir,” I said with as much respect as I could muster.

Snow shot me a warning look.

The Mage walked back to his desk chair and sat down, crossing his legs. “What warrants this visit?”

I glanced over at Snow, who nodded reassuringly.

“Well,” I said, stepping out of the doorway and fully into the office. “We have a… predicament. Of sorts.”

He raised one eyebrow.

“I…” I clenched my jaw and willed myself through the sentence. “Snow and I were arguing. I made a snap decision and… and cursed him. He can’t speak now, and we need your help.”

A smile played at the Mage’s lips. “Mr. Pitch. I’m sure I don’t have to remind you the consequences for cursing another student?”

“No, sir,” I said through gritted teeth. Snow glanced at me, his brow knit.

The Mage stood. “We can discuss your punishment later, Mr. Pitch. For now, let me perform the counterspell and bring Simon’s voice back.”

“Er,” I said, “it’s not quite that simple.”

He froze mid-stride.

“The spell,” I said, “is very specific. It… It can only be broken through. Uh. Through true love’s kiss.”

“If this is your idea of a joke, it isn’t very funny.”

Snow vigorously shook his head.

“I’m telling the truth,” I said, crossing my arms over my chest. “We’ve tried all of Snow’s friends, and nothing’s working. We were… We were hoping you might be able to help us. Sir.”

He pursed his lips. “A kiss? You’re certain?”

“Yes, sir. We’ve both conducted research, and that seems to be the only way to reverse the spell.” I didn’t mention that the spell had never actually been reversed. It somehow seemed like the wrong thing to say.

The Mage stopped in front of Snow. “Are you sure Mr. Pitch is telling the truth? This is the only way?”

He nodded.

“Very well,” said the Mage. “If it helps.”

He pecked Simon on the lips, very quickly. It reminded me of a kiss between family members, almost like that between a father and son.

The Mage then stepped back, head tilted. “Well?”

Simon’s mouth opened as he took a breath—and immediately clamped shut.

The Mage’s brows twitched. “What happened?”

“It didn’t work,” I said as Snow turned to me, a look somewhere between fear and sadness in his eyes. “The curse didn’t break.”

“Simon… can’t speak?” The Mage’s eyes were practically red with barely contained rage. “He can’t perform magic?”

“No, sir,” I said, taking a step back, “but we’re trying to find a solution—“

“Mr. Pitch,” he said quietly. “Are you aware that Simon Snow is the Chosen One?”

“Yes.”

“The Greatest Mage? The Savior of the World of Mages? My _Heir_?”

“Yes.”

“Yes, _sir._ ”

“Yes. _Sir_.”

“And you—you took away his ability to do magic.” He didn’t pose it as a question.

I didn’t give a response.

“Simon.” The Mage was nearly trembling now. “Please exit my office. Mr. Pitch and I need to have a discussion.”

Snow didn’t budge.

“Simon,” he said again. “ _Now._ ”

Simon Snow moved in front of me, blocking me from the Mage.

My breath hitched.

“What are you doing?” the Mage hissed. “Why are you… _defending_ him?”

Snow pointed at the Mage’s desk and pantomimed writing on his palm.

“ _What_?”

“He needs paper,” I said, fighting the urge to roll my eyes. “He wants to say something.”

The Mage, never fully turning away from Snow and me, walked back to his desk and retrieved a piece of paper and a pen. He handed it to Snow, who rested it on his thigh and rapidly scrawled in half-legible script:

_Baz made a mistake. He cursed me, but he’s been helping me try to reverse it. He’s done most of the research. And I think he really feels bad about it. It wasn’t an accident, really, but it was as close as it can get. I’ve already forgiven him for it. I don’t want him to get in trouble._

I looked at Snow after I finished reading over his shoulder. I could really only see him in profile, his eyes sharp, his mouth set. He handed the note to the Mage and waited.

As he read the note, the Mage’s mouth drew into a firmer line, the creases in his face seemingly deepening with every word. Finally, he looked back up at Snow, his expression heavy.

“Simon,” he said. “This is a very nice sentiment, but rules are rules. Mr. Pitch must answer for his actions.”

Snow’s jaw clenched.

“There’s really very little I can do,” the Mage continued. “I understand that he’s helped you, but he also blatantly attacked you.”

His hand reached for the paper, but the Mage didn’t give it to him.

“You must leave now. Mr. Pitch and I will discuss his punishment.”

His hands curled into twin fists.

The Mage sighed. “Simon, honestly. I don’t know what you want me to tell you. He didn’t assault just any student. This concerns _you_ —the Mage’s Heir, the Chosen One. He…” The Mage’s voice tightened here, his face gradually flushing. “He may have just doomed the World of Mages. These actions can’t go without punishment.”

The hairs on my arms stood up, almost like there was static electricity nearby.

“If this makes you feel any better,” offered the Mage, “he’ll probably be expelled. You’ll have your dorm room all to yourself now. Haven’t you been complaining for years about that?”

No—not static electricity. _Magic._

Snow’s hands were in fists at his side, noticeably trembling. There was a sheen on sweat on his cheek, and his mouth was curled into a scowl.

And his magic was jumping off the charts.

I was used to the feeling of Snow’s magic: burning hot and heavy, like fire and smoke. It was all around me, slowly building, threatening to consume. I stepped back from Snow, but he didn’t seem to notice. He just kept staring at the Mage, who had by this point also noticed the magical aura surrounding his Heir.

“Simon,” he said, his tone somewhere between warning and afraid. “Calm down.”

His fists clenched tighter. A small drop of crimson trailed down between his fingers, but he didn’t seem to notice. I forced myself to look away. I could smell it already, and after three days of starving, I was afraid I would bleed Snow dry.

The Mage had taken several steps away, almost behind his desk. “Simon, please,” he said, his voice tremulous. “Please.”

Snow was practically glowing with power. He was god-like: beautiful and terrifying all at once. Just. Swift. Merciless.

He took a step forward.

“Hey,” I said. “Snow.”

Another step.

“Snow. Wait a minute.”

Yet another. The Mage visibly swallowed.

I took a deep breath. “Stop. Snow, _stop_.”

One more step.

On impulse, I placed my hand on his shoulder, trying to stand the heat. “ _Simon!_ ”

He paused.

He was scorching under my hand, but I didn’t let go. “You’re losing control,” I said. “Try to stay calm.”

His eyes met mine—bright and blue and absolutely electric.

“You’re okay,” I continued, stepping in front of him and letting my hand fall to his wrist. “I’m okay. Everything’s going to be okay.”

Gradually, the heat seeped out of him, dissipating. He slumped as though exhausted and looked up at me through his lashes.

I blamed the warmth on my face on the lingering heat in the room.

Snow eyes focused behind me, narrow and accusatory. I didn’t have time to turn and look at the Mage before he grabbed my arm and pulled me behind him, leading me out the door and slamming it behind us.

He pulled me down the rest of the tower, his hand still on my arm and still a little warm from his explosion in the office. I let him lead me until we were outside, when I gently broke free from his grip.

“Thank you,” I said. “For defending me.”

He wouldn’t meet my eyes.

“I’m sorry it didn’t work. The kiss, I mean.” My chest felt thick and heavy; I forced air into my lungs. “I’m sorry you still can’t speak.”

He shrugged.

I felt something warm and wet drip off of my fingers and looked down. My fingertips were stained scarlet, coated in Snow’s blood. I looked at his hand and saw tiny half-moon-shaped cuts in his palm; my hand must have brushed his while I was calming him down. The iron tang of blood overpowered my senses as I fought the animalistic urge inside me.

“You’re bleeding,” I choked out, feeling my fangs start to poke through. _Don’t do it_ , I told myself. _Don’t do it. Don’t be gross._

He glanced down at his hand, finally noticing his cuts.

“Well,” I said quickly, trying to stop my fang-induced lisp from sounding too obvious, “I’ll, uh, see you back at the dorm.”

I took off towards the catacombs, feeling Snow’s eyes on me and finally letting my fangs poke through.

I won’t go into the details of how I hunt—mostly because it’s honestly a little disgusting, and I’m sure nobody really wants to know. But hunting and feeding do give me a lot of time to think, and there was a lot to think about.

I tried to stay focused on the most pressing issue: the Mage’s kiss hadn’t worked. Snow still couldn’t speak.

I couldn’t say that I thought that it would work, but it was our last option. Unless Snow wanted to go around making out with brick buildings, we had absolutely no ideas as to who his true love could be. By that point, we had less than twenty-four hours left and no progress to show for it. We were royally fucked.

This was, objectively, the most pressing concern of the day. But it wasn’t the one that my mind chose to focus on. Instead, it kept going back to that moment in the office, when Snow was going berserk. When he was, without a doubt, the most powerful magic user at Watford. Maybe in England. Maybe in the world. When, for the first time, I was truly frightened by him and his magic.

When the only thing that could get him to stop was my hand on his shoulder.

It didn’t mean anything. It _couldn’t_ mean anything. All that Snow needed in that moment was someone to calm him down, to make him see what he was doing. It didn’t matter who it was. It would have worked with Bunce or Wellbelove or Ebb or probably even the Mage, if he could stop being a coward long enough to actually _do_ something. It just happened to be me this time. It didn’t mean anything.

But I couldn’t get it out of my head.

After I was full and no longer felt like I was going to go insane over every paper cut, I headed back to the dorm. Snow was waiting for me, sitting on his bed with one of his notebooks propped up on his lap, chewing on the end of a pen and thinking. He jumped up when I entered the room.

“Hey,” I said lamely. It suddenly struck me that the last time we had seen each other, I had run away from him without explanation. I wanted to punch myself in the face. “Uh. Were you brainstorming just now?”

He nodded.

“Could you come up with anything?”

He shook his head.

“Oh.” I crossed my arms, then felt like that looked weird and dropped them back down to my sides. “Is Bunce coming over tonight?”

Another shake of the head.

I nodded. “Okay.”

We sat in silence—me, because I didn’t know what to say, and him because he had no other choice.

“Well,” I said, “we’ll try again tomorrow?”

He shrugged. I realized that I had never before seen Snow so lifeless; he looked like the color had been sucked out of him.

I didn’t know how to talk to him, so I wordlessly prepared for bed. He closed his notebook and slid it under his pillow, almost like he was expecting to wake up in the middle of the night with some brilliant plan and needed quick access to his notebook in order to write it down before he forgot it. The action would have been almost endearing in any other context.

We both settled in, and though our beds were only a few feet apart, there seemed to be a concrete wall between us. I faced toward him. He faced toward the wall, but I knew he was breathing too quickly to be asleep.

“Snow,” I murmured. “I have a question.”

He turned towards me, his movements slow and his eyes dark.

“In the note to the Mage,” I began slowly. “You said that you had forgiven me.” I scanned his face, pale in the moonlight. “Was that true?”

He only stared at me for a long time, his eyes flitting between my own. Then he simply shrugged and turned back to the wall.

“I’m sorry,” I whispered after a minute, but either he didn’t hear me or he didn’t care.


	4. Chapter 4

Snow was already awake when I got up the next morning, hunched over his notebook but not writing anything. He had his blanket draped across his shoulders, trying to keep out the cold. It was an unfamiliar situation; usually I woke first and was already out of the room before he had even opened his eyes.

“Morning,” I greeted, sitting up and rolling my neck. Snow glanced at me quickly before returning to his notes. I took that as the most acknowledgement I was going to get from him.

I went about my usual morning routine, trying to make a mental checklist of what we could do. It was a Saturday, meaning that there were no classes, so we could spend all day just working on breaking the curse. It was an incredible blessing, considering we only had about twelve hours left to find a solution. Only twelve hours before Simon Snow would never speak again. My stomach ached every time I thought about it. 

I didn’t know how much sleep Snow had gotten. I didn’t know if he had slept at all. I hadn’t. I stayed up all night, tossing and turning and trying to figure out any kind of solution. I still couldn’t think of anything, and we were running out of time. If we couldn’t find Snow’s true love, his case would be just another sad citation in the appendix of a textbook. I would be thrown out of Watford without question, and maybe he would too. The World of Mages would fall.

And all because he was  _ annoying _ me.

I wanted, more than anything, to go back to that moment. To cast a different spell, or maybe no spell at all. To just let Snow use the Sword of Mages on me. Merlin knows I deserved it.

I went into the bathroom to brush my teeth and change, and when I came back out Snow was gone. I guessed that he had gone ahead to breakfast without waiting for me. I didn’t blame him. 

I walked to the dining hall by myself. It was a relatively warm day; the snow had begun to melt and the sun was bright and golden. It felt almost as though the weather was mocking our situation, giving a beautiful day when our spirits were lowest.

Snow and Bunce were sitting at our usual table, across from each other. Snow saw me come in first and nudged Bunce’s arm. She glanced up and slid over so I could sit next to her. There was a piece of paper on the table, but nothing written on it.

“What did I miss?” I asked, taking the seat.

“Nothing super important,” said Bunce. “Do you still have those notes from when you did research on the curse? Do you think there could be something that we missed?”

I was already shaking my head before she even finished her question. “I’ve gone through the notes extensively,” I said. “There’s nothing that could give us any kind of clue. The most useful thing that it told us was that—“

“That the curse has never been broken,” she finished. “Yeah, I remember.”

I crossed my legs. “I don’t think there’s any more research we can do. I looked through every reference I could find, and there wasn’t a lot of information. All we’ve got to go off of now is whatever we can come up with ourselves.”

Snow traced the grain of the wooden table with his finger and didn’t look at either of us. 

“Well,” Bunce said, “we can’t give up hope. We have until around eight tonight. That’s plenty of time to come up with a new idea, right?”

I didn’t trust myself to say something that wouldn’t come off negatively. Snow only shrugged.

“Well,” she said, trying a little too hard to remain upbeat, “we’ll think of something. We have to.”

We all sat in silence after that, not quite sure of how to fill it. Snow looked terrible; there were puffy circles under his eyes and his skin looked pale and colorless. He looked as though he had already resigned himself to being silent forever. It hurt me to look at him. 

Bunce didn’t look much better. Her hair was even more frizzy and tangled than usual and there was mascara smeared around her eyes. She looked like she hadn’t slept any more than I had. The entire team had taken a morale hit, and I wasn’t sure it was something that we could get over by the end of the day. Our chances of breaking this curse seemed to be growing more dismal by the minute.

The silence was finally broken, but not by any of us. A fourth person cleared their throat declaratively, as though trying to assert themselves into the group. We all slowly looked up.

Wellbelove was standing a few feet away, her arms crossed and eyes hard as steel. She glanced at me for a second, like we were sharing some kind of secret. I didn’t know what I was supposed to be in on.

“I need to talk to you,” she said, her attention turned back to Simon. Bunce and I shared a look.

Snow nodded and went to stand.

“No, no,” said Bunce. “You two take the table. Baz and I will move.” She raised her eyebrows at me. I scowled at her but didn’t argue. 

Snow tentatively sat back down, eyeing his girlfriend as she moved to my side of the table. “Baz,” she said coolly, flipping her hair and watching me stand up.

“Wellbelove,” I said back, just to see Snow’s cheeks go pink. A spot of color on his face. I realized how little I’d seen it recently.

“We’ll meet up with you later,” said Bunce, already turning away. “Come on, Baz.” 

I lingered for a moment, my gaze flipping between Wellbelove and Snow, before catching up with Bunce and following her out of the dining hall.

I waited until we were a good ten meters away from the door to say anything. “Any reason why you offered them the table? I was perfectly comfortable where I was, you know.”

“The conversation they’re going to have,” she said, “isn’t going to go well. I thought they should both probably be sitting down for it.”

“You think she’s going to break up with Snow?”

“Something along those lines, yes. She’ll start by saying how much she’s missed him over the past few days, he’ll spout some noble line about wanting to leave her out of his conflict with you, there’ll be a quiet argument in which he’ll finally come to terms with her weird fixation on you—and _ she’ll _ come to terms with  _ his  _ weird fixation on you—and there’ll be a clean split. It should only take about twenty minutes, maybe thirty.”

I was a little unsettled by her assertion that Snow had a fixation on me, but I was mostly impressed with her prediction. “You think there’s that much tension between them?”

“Oh, sure,” she said. “It’s been building up for weeks, months. Maybe even years. They were never right for each other.”

“And you’ve never said anything?”

“I did, when they first got together. But Simon didn’t listen and it wasn’t my place to bring it up again.”

I hummed and slid my hands into my pockets. Bunce’s analysis of their relationship was honestly kind of admirable. 

We walked in silence for a minute or two. She was evidently thinking hard about something—maybe about what was going on with Snow and Wellbelove. I was staring off at the Weeping Tower, thinking about our meeting with the Mage and the inevitability of my expulsion from Watford. I’d managed to keep a spotless record thus far, but this was too big of a blight to overlook. I couldn’t even imagine what my father was going to say. What my mother would say, if she were still here. For about a billionth of a second, I was almost glad that she wasn’t around to see what I had done. 

“Baz,” Bunce said suddenly.

She had stopped in the middle of the grounds, her arms folded over her chest in an attempt to block out the cold.

“What?”

“Simon and I were talking before you got to breakfast,” she said. “He’s out of ideas for how to break the curse.”

“So am I,” I said. “I’ve been driving myself mad trying to think of something.”

“Well… I think I might have a possibility,” she said slowly.

I snapped to full attention. “Well? What is it?”

She bit her lip and said nothing.

“Bunce?”

“It’s just an idea,” she began. “A hypothetical.”

“Bunce.”

“But it’s someone he sees and talks to every day, and we’re out of ideas, and—“

“ _ What is it? _ ”

“You,” she blurted. “It’s you, Baz.”

I stiffened. “I… We’ve been  _ over  _ this. It can’t be me.”

“Why not?” she asked.

“Are you kidding?” I ticked off my points on my fingers. “I’m his arch nemesis. We’ve been at each other’s throats for years. He  _ despises  _ me. Of course I’m not his… his…  _ true love. _ ” The words were surprisingly hard to say. “It’s a dead end, Bunce. Let it go.”

“You said yourself that we’re out of ideas,” Bunce argued. “This is the only thing that we haven’t tried.”

“Yeah,” I said. “Because it’s  _ stupid. _ ”

“I don’t see you coming up with anything better!” She was fuming now, her hands in tight fists by her side, her cheeks turning red. “Simon’s about to lose his voice  _ forever _ , Baz! You might both be kicked out of Watford! And you’re not even willing to  _ try _ the only option we have left!”

“Because it’s  _ ridiculous _ !”

“So is this entire situation! But we have to be sure that—“

“No,” I said, cutting her off. “No. I… I’m not going to kiss Snow. There’s nothing you can say or do to convince me.”

“You promised you would help break the spell,” she said. “You said you felt bad. You said—“

“I know what I said,” I snapped. “But this crosses a line. I’ve done research. I took Snow to see the Mage. I’ve done my part.”

“You were the one who did this,” she hissed, truly furious. “Your part isn’t over until we break this curse.”

“Then by all means, have Snow kiss every student in the school, or hell, even in England. Try his fucking Watford idea if you want. But I… I am  _ not  _ Snow’s true love.”

“He might still lose his voice.” Bunce’s voice was strained, her shoulders tight. “It might not even matter. But if it could help at all… If there’s even a  _ chance  _ of it working…” She swallowed. “Then it’s worth a shot.”

My jaw clenched. I couldn’t meet her gaze, staring at the snow instead.

“Look,” she said, her tone softening. “I know it’s weird, and awkward. I know that you hate each other. I know that this is the worst possible solution to this situation.” She took a breath. “But I’d rather Snow lose his voice after we exhaust all of our options than spend the rest of our lives wondering what if.”

“Bunce,” I said. “If there was any chance of it working, then it might be worth a shot. But there’s no way in hell than I’m Snow’s true love—and either way, we’ll never convince Snow to kiss me. It’s a dead end.”

“Baz,” she said, but I was already walking away.

I picked up speed and didn’t stop until I was all the way back to Mummers House. I flopped onto my bed and dropped my head into my hands. My face felt like it was burning.

I couldn’t figure out what was wrong with me.

Obviously I wanted to break the curse. I had been working nonstop for the past three days to figure some kind of solution. It didn’t even matter at that point that I was probably getting kicked out of Watford, regardless as to whether or not we managed to break the curse. I really did feel terrible about what I had done to Snow, and that guilt was steadily gnawing at me.

But deep down, I knew that that wasn’t the only reason I was helping him.

There was another something, a more potent something, that ached right in my chest cavity. For the past two days, I had thought that that feeling was just guilt, or maybe panic. But it was gentler, softer somehow; not a scream, but a whisper. I knew that it was the real reason I was helping Snow, the reason that I had stuck with him for the past three days, the reason that I had gone with him to the Mage’s office. The reason I still hadn’t given up.

Thinking about it made my stomach flip and my head feel light, almost like I was coming down with something. I hated the feeling of it.

I heard the door open and my head snapped up of its own accord. There stood Snow, his coloring dull and near lifeless. He trudged into the room and sat on his bed, leaning back and rubbing his eyes.

“Is everything okay?” I asked quietly after a moment.

He moved his hands over this bridge of his nose and looked at me, his eyes watery and red. He slowly nodded.

“Do you want to talk about it?”

Snow waited another moment, in which he seemed on the verge of tears, before hastily standing and grabbing the paper. His writing was scrawled and spiky; it took me a few seconds to interpret what he had written.

_ Agatha and I broke up _ .

“Oh,” I said. “That’s… I’m sorry.”

I handed him the paper and he sat back down across from me.

“Is it… Was it because of…” I trailed off, but he seemed to understand what I meant.

_ No, it wasn’t because I can’t speak. Well, not directly. She’s mad that I didn’t tell her everything and just haven’t really tried to include in the past few days. Which I guess is pretty valid. _

“Yeah,” I said. My voice sounded dry. “How do you feel?”

Snow shrugged. 

“Are you… Uh. Are you okay?”

He paused, then wrote:  _ I mean, I know that she’s not my true love. And I guess I haven’t been the greatest boyfriend recently, and there’s kind of a reason for that. But she’s still one of my best friends. I’m going to miss her. _

I nodded and crossed my legs, not quite sure of what to say next. He took back the paper and carefully wrote out a sentence.

_ Any new ideas for how to break the curse _ ?

My memory snapped back to the conversation that Bunce and I had had while walking from the dining hall. Her words echoed in my head, taunting me:  _ If there’s even a chance of it working, then it’s worth a shot. _

“No,” I said, forcing the idea out of my mind. “Nothing.”

Snow bit his lip as he wrote.  _ Oh. Then I guess we’re out of options. _

_ I’d rather Snow lose his voice after we exhaust all of our options than spend the rest of our lives wondering what if,  _ said the Bunce in my head.

_ Fuck off,  _ I thought back. Out loud, I said, “There has to be something we haven’t thought of yet.”

He nodded, just slightly.

“Snow. We’ll figure it out.”

An even weaker nod.

I uncrossed my legs. “We could go to the library again, if you want. Do some more research. I don’t think we’ll find anything more about the curse, but maybe there’s a spell that could give us more time—“

_ I’d rather just stay here. If that’s okay. _

“Oh,” I said. “Yeah. That’s, uh, that’s fine I guess.” I stood and straightened my tie. “Do you want to be alone?”

He nodded. 

“Right,” I said. “Right. I’ll, uh, get going then.” I glanced at him one last time before turning and leaving the room. 

I got halfway across the grounds before I realized I had no idea where I was going. I had been in such a hurry to give him some space that I hadn’t even considered where I was supposed to go. I supposed I could go to the library, to do some more research, but that suggestion had been more of an overly optimistic reach than a real possibility. I sincerely doubted there was any kind of research that we could do that could help us in any way. Bunce was probably back at her dorm room by now, and I didn’t really want to see her, anyway. She was just going to push her ridiculous idea again and we’d probably end up doing more arguing than brainstorming. Everywhere that I could think of was a dead end. We really were out of options.

I kept walking, past the Weeping Tower, the girls’ dorms, the dining hall. The smell wafting through the open doors made my mouth water; I realized I hadn’t eaten anything that morning, what with all of the stressing over the curse and Agatha’s interruption. The hall was mostly empty now, and snatching a late breakfast was the best option I had. 

There wasn’t a ton of food left—mostly just pastries and fruit—and I didn’t have too much of an appetite, so I picked up a fairly small apple and nothing else. I was a little anxious to run into Wellbelove, but there was no sign of her in the hall. My mates Dev and Niall were sitting at one of the tables at the far end of the room, but I wasn’t in the mood to talk to them and explain why I had sort of disappeared for the past few days. I slipped back out of the doors as quick and inconspicuously as I could, taking a bite of my apple as I stepped back out onto the snow-covered grounds. 

And choked as a flash of tawny hair caught my eyes at the edge of the Wavering Wood.

I dropped my apple in the snow out of surprise, but it barely registered. There was only one person I knew who had hair that color, and there was something that didn’t sit right with me about him sneaking off to the Wood without telling anyone. 

Before I could think about what I was doing, my legs were carrying me across the lawn, breaking into a jog and then a full-on sprint. I couldn’t help but assume the worst. Had the Humdrum come back? Was there some monster lurking in the Wood? Was Snow walking to his death? Would he have cared, after the events of the past few days?

I tore across the grounds and into the cover of the trees, guessing at the direction that Snow had gone. I couldn’t calm down. I couldn’t stop. I was seized by the possibility that something might happen to him, and that thought refused to let me go. It propelled me forward until I wasn’t entirely sure where I was, but there was no time to slow down. If I got there too late—if something happened to Snow and I could have been there to stop it… I owed him this, at least. After what I had done to him, I owed him this.

The trees thinned out into a small clearing—and there he was, sitting with his head down, his knees up to his chest, his arms hugging his legs. He faced away from me, his back taut. I noticed there was no snow in this part of the forest and assumed it had something to do with the Wood’s magic. Even I didn’t know all of its magical properties.

“Snow?” I panted, out of breath from running. 

He didn’t turn. There didn’t seem to be any kind of danger nearby. Just Snow, sitting by himself in the middle of this clearing. I realized at that moment that he hadn’t been running into the Wood because he was trying to get to some monster; he had been running into the Wood to get away from everything else.

“Snow,” I whispered, “I’m sorry.”

His tawny hair, reflecting gold in the morning sun, swayed gently in the breeze, but still he did not move. 

“We still have a few hours. We could… I mean, we could try…”

He shook his head, just slightly.

I didn’t know what to say.

The wind picked up a bit, and I crossed my arms over my chest. Snow’s shoulders tensed slightly from the chill.

“Snow,” I said, “come back to the dorm.”

He did nothing. 

“You’re going to freeze out here. And Bunce can help us come up with a new plan. It’s useless to just sit out here and wait out the rest of the curse.”

He buried his head into his chest.

“Please.” 

He finally turned around. His nose was bright pink, and his cheeks were stained with fat tears. 

I had never seen Simon cry that openly before.

He dragged his sleeve across his face, a sob ripping through him. The wind was growing faster and faster, racing against itself, shaking the trees and flattening the grass. I pushed my hair behind my ears and crossed my arms over my torso.

“Come on,” I yelled to him over the screaming of the air. “Come back to the dorm.”

Snow’s head was down, his shoulders shaking as steady tears rolled down his face. 

The wind was nearly deafening now; my hair flew into my mouth when I spoke and the cold seemed to cut through me. “Snow,  _ please _ ! It’s too cold out here—“

I stopped.

There was something off about the wind. It had seemed to come from nowhere—but then again, wind in England seemed to do that. But the way it was blowing, Snow should have been shivering like crazy. I’m a  _ vampire _ and I was freezing. 

But the wind wasn’t affecting him at all.

His hair was perfectly still. He wasn’t shaking because he was cold: he was shaking because he was crying. Snow was completely impervious to the weather.

I dared a step closer to him. Even the grass around his feet was still. It seemed as though he were in a perfect little bubble, unaffected by the elements around him.

“Snow!” I took another step closer, screaming over the still-quickening wind. “You need to calm down!”

He looked back at me, his eyes smoldering.

“You’re doing magic! You’re doing  _ wordless magic _ !”

The wind slowed down for just a moment as a confused expression flickered across Snow’s face.

“You’re angry at me,” I called, “and you have every right to be. But magic follows emotion. And you’re not just doing magic; you’re doing  _ really advanced  _ magic. It takes a lot to manipulate the elements. This isn’t like in the Mage’s office. You’re changing the weather.” I ran a hand through my hair, pushing it away from my face. “You’re performing real magic, Simon.  _ Without words _ .”

Snow bit his lip, considering this. The wind dialed back down to a normal speed, though it was still a little harsh.

“I know you’re upset,” I said. “Just—let me try to fix this. Please.”

He stood, slowly, tentatively, as the wind ebbed to a gentle breeze. His jaw clenched as he stared at me. I could still feel the heat of his magic rolling off of him.

I took a few steps forward, until I was standing near enough that I could have reached out and touched him if I had wanted to. And a part of me—a weird, impulsive part of me— _ did  _ want to. I wanted to brush his curls off of his forehead and wipe the angry tears from his face and hold him close and let him know that I was here. 

And then the rational part of me came to its senses, and I dismissed those intrusive thoughts as best I could.

Snow stared at me, his blue eyes dark and somber and wet. His face was blotchy, patches of bright pink across his nose and cheeks. He looked terrible.

He opened his mouth to try to say something, but it slammed closed. We both flinched.

“No paper in the middle of the woods,” I said, trying at humor and falling short.

Snow pursed his lips and gently took my hand, lying it face-up in his own. He traced letters over my palm with his pointer finger, his head down and his curls blocking his eyes from my view.

_ I. T. S. O. K. A. Y. _

He looked up at me, his eyes full of tears and kind of smiling.

“It’s not,” I said. My hand still lay in his. I didn’t move it away and he didn’t drop it. “It’s  _ not  _ okay. But… We still have some time. Penny might be able to help us. We could… We could try…”

Snow shook his head and ran his thumb over my palm, as though trying to remind my skin of the letters that he had traced into it. I hadn’t thought that my hand was that cold, but his touch was like fire.

“I never meant for it to get this far,” I whispered.

Simon Snow, the Chosen One, the Greatest Mage without a voice, gazed up at me, his hands over mine, our faces just inches away from each other.

He smiled at me, genuinely and so, so sadly.

My heart skipped a beat.

For a second, I thought I might kiss him. Then I thought I was going to shove him off of me. Then I was afraid I was going to bite him, right then, his skin flushed and warm and full of blood…

But I never got to decide, because then  _ he _ was kissing  _ me _ .

He was kissing me, his lips soft at first but growing more powerful, more demanding. He was kissing me, his hands traveling up my arms and trailing across my shoulders and grazing my neck and entangling themselves in my hair. He was kissing me, pushing me down until we were laying against the snow, limbs crossed, lips touching. 

He was kissing me.

And I was kissing him back. 

His body was so  _ warm _ , pressed up against mine, spreading heat through my dead bones. I devoured him completely, every inch of him, living for nothing but that moment of privacy and perfection. I couldn’t think. I could hardly breathe. Simon Snow was my only lifeline, the only thing that assured me that any of this was real.

He broke away for a moment, his light eyes playful and deep and looking at me, looking at  _ me _ , at his arch nemesis who had cursed him and who had kissed him. 

“Is this okay?” I asked.

He nodded.

I met his mouth again and we were back to fire and ice.


	5. Chapter 5

I can’t say how long we spent in the Wavering Wood. Then again, I wasn’t particularly focused on keeping track of time. I had more pressing matters on my mind.

Namely, that Simon Snow was willingly snogging me.  _ Simon Snow.  _ Was snogging  _ me.  _

Aleister Crowley.

I didn’t say anything for a while. I didn’t want to ruin the moment, or snap him out of it. I didn’t want to think about what this meant—for me, for  _ us. _ Instead, I tangled his curls through my fingers and traced my thumb across his ridiculously defined jawline and lost myself in him. 

He didn’t say anything, either. His lips made a map of my topography, traveling across my nose, around my jaw, down my neck. Every touch made me feel more alive, my skin buzzing wherever it collided with his. He was  _ hot _ , especially when compared to my warmthless body, and his touch was like being wrapped up and cozy in a blanket. A blanket that smelled really, really nice. 

It was only after a little while that I realized he wasn’t just hot to me; he was hot in general. Beads of sweat were forming along his forehead, and he was beginning to feel feverish. It was so much that I could feel it radiating off of him even in places we weren’t directly touching. It reminded me too much of that time in the Mage’s office, when Snow had practically combusted and the entire room had felt like the inside of a volcano.

“Snow,” I murmured, breaking away for a moment and steadying myself with a hand against his chest. (His rather firm chest. Crowley.) “You’re burning up.”

He shrugged and leaned back into me. It took every ounce of my willpower not to give in.

“ _ Snow, _ ” I said again. “I’m serious. You’re too hot.”

He grinned a little bit.

“You know what I mean, you arse.” I sat up, straightening my shirt, and looked him in the eye. “Heat’s rolling off of you in waves. I think it might be from an overuse of magic. We should get back to the dorms, just in case”

After a moment of consideration, he bit his lip and got up, reaching one hand down to help me to my feet. His skin burned but my fingers lingered anyway, neither of us making a move to pull away.

“Right,” I murmured, clearing my throat. “Let’s, er, let’s go, then.”

We trekked back to the dorm in silence. He walked ahead of me, shuffling his feet a little and leaving long tracks in the snow. I couldn’t look at him. What are you supposed to say, after you snog your mortal enemy in the Wood and then have to endure a long walk together back to your room? How are you supposed to act? What the  _ fuck  _ are you supposed to do?

It was a long walk up to our room; neither of us looked at each other the whole way up. He opened the door to our room and stepped inside, giving me some room to enter. 

“Uh,” I said rather intelligently, “I think I’m going to run to the bath. If that’s alright.”

He smiled a little bit and nodded, stepping aside to allow access to the bathroom. I nodded and slid past him, feeling like I was going to explode.

I hastily shut the door behind me and stared at myself in the mirror, trying to return my breathing to a normal rate. My brain refused to process what was happening and I had the strangest sensation of falling while standing still. I didn’t know whether or not I liked it.

It seemed insane, and the me from a year ago—or even a  _ week  _ ago—would never have believed it. But it was true. 

Snow and I had kissed. We had kissed  _ a lot _ .

I bit my lip to keep from screaming.

I tried to calm myself, but my mind wouldn’t slow down. I forced myself to think about what had just happened, about what all of this meant—for me, for Snow, for me  _ and  _ Snow…

I was snapped out of my reverie when a loud thud sounded from the bedroom, followed by an “Ah, shit.”

My head shot up. 

“Holy fuck,” said Snow, out loud. “Holy fuck.  _ Holy fucking fuck _ .”

I threw open the bathroom door. “You—you just…”

“Spoke,” he said, his eyes wider than I’d ever seen them. “Yeah.”

“Holy fuck,” I echoed. “I—you—we…” I swallowed, meeting his eyes. “We did it. We fucking broke the curse.”

It took a second, but a massive grin captured his face.

“We have to tell Penny,” he said. “No—wait. What if I just met her on the grounds, and casually said, like, ‘Wow, weather’s great today,’ and then she would freak out—“

My mind wasn’t as cheerfully entertained. “Snow.”

“And then she would scream, and honestly probably hit me, but  _ Merlin’s beard  _ would it be funny—“

“ _ Snow _ .”

“ _ What? _ ”

“The curse,” I said. “It broke.”

“Well, yeah, Sherlock. Obviously it did.”

“No, Snow.” I held his gaze for a moment, his eyes bright from the excitement. “I mean,  _ we broke the curse.  _ We… We, uh…”

“Oh,” he said. “Oh, shit.”

I sat on my bed and crossed my legs. “Yeah.”

He sank down across from me, our knees almost touching but not quite.

I hesitated before asking, “Are you sure it was me that broke it?” 

He nodded. “I haven’t tried to speak since before we… well, you know. But I’ve tried immediately after every other attempt to break the spell.” He scratched behind his ear. “I guess… well, I guess I didn’t really consider it an attempt.”

“But it… It’s  _ impossible. _ We’re enemies. We hate each other…” My voice faltered as I realized maybe that wasn’t quite true.

After all, I  _ had  _ voluntarily helped him break the curse. I had kept trying to tell myself that it was because I felt bad, but the fact that I felt bad at all was a red flag. And then there was the incident in the Mage’s office, when my touch had been the only thing to keep Snow from going berserk on the Headmaster. Maybe we didn’t hate each other quite as much as we thought we did. 

And then I dismissed that thought, because it was ridiculous and definitely not helping.

“Baz,” he said, pulling me back into the situation at hand. “Does that mean… I mean, are we…”

“I think,” I said, leaning back, “that I’d rather not think about that now. If that’s okay with you.”

After a second, he nodded. 

“Good,” I said. “Good.” 

A moment passed in which neither of us spoke or looked at the other. My stomach was doing acrobatics and my head felt like it was going to explode. There had been awkward moments with Snow before, but never like this. Never after we had kissed.

“Baz,” Snow whispered. “What happened in the Wood…”

Oh, Crowley. He was going to say it was all some big mistake, that he had done it in a last-ditch attempt to break the curse, that he was just caught up in the moment. I felt a flash of unprecedented fear.

“Yeah?” I rasped.

Snow took a deep breath and looked me dead in the eyes. “I meant it,” he said. “Every second.”

I couldn’t fucking breathe.

“I don’t know what that means yet,” Snow continued, his cheeks flushing pink. “I don’t know… I don’t really know how to feel about it. But I don’t want you to think that it didn’t mean something, you know? I did it because I wanted to, not because I had some kind of ulterior motive.”

I managed a nod, feeling the overwhelming urge to scream.

Snow didn’t say anything more, and I took it that it was my turn to respond.

“I, er.” I cleared my throat. “I don’t… I mean…” I felt untethered and unreal, like I was floating. I couldn’t form a coherent sentence. Snow looked at me with eyes that were so, so blue, and before I could think about what I was doing I leaned forward and pressed my lips against his. 

He stiffened for just a moment before melting into me, pulling me across the gap between our beds until I was seated next to him, our legs tangled. My hands grabbed his collar, pulling him close, while his fingers were busy tangling themselves in my hair. After a moment I gently broke away.

“Does that,” I muttered, staring at his lips, “clear some things up?”

“Yeah,” he said, smiling. “It certainly helps.”

I grinned and leaned back into him.

***

We met Bunce at lunch that day, at our usual table. (That was another thing. I didn’t know when it had become  _ our  _ table, and I don’t think that I disliked it.) Snow had every intention of staying silent and only revealing that we had broken the spell at the end of the meal, but that plan went to shit almost immediately.

“Merlin!” Bunce cried as soon as we were in sight, standing and nearly tripping over the table. “ _ You broke the curse! _ ”

Snow’s face fell. “I didn’t even get to prank you.”

“How did you know?” I asked.

“Simon was smiling,” she said. “He would not be smiling if he still couldn’t speak. And what do you mean,  _ prank  _ me?”

While Snow explained the joke he had planned, I studied Bunce with a mix of admiration and trepidation. One part of me appreciated her immediate prediction of our breaking the curse. Another was afraid of what she’d do when we told her how.

“I want to know everything,” Bunce said, after she had adequately scolded Snow for his prank idea and we had all sat down. “How did you break the curse? When? And  _ who  _ broke it?”

Snow and I shared a glance. “Well,” he began. “It’s, er, kind of an interesting story…”

He looked at me once more, and I drew in a breath.

“Do you remember our conversation earlier today? About your… theory?”

“Yes, of course,” she said. “What about it?”

I looked at her. 

“Oh,” she said. “Oh wow.”

“Yeah,” I said, my throat dry. “Wow.”

Snow bumped my leg with his own under the table.

“About time you two figured it out,” Bunce said with a grin.

“ _ Penny _ !”

“Well, it’s true.” She shrugged. “You’ve gushed about Baz every single day for the past seven years. And when I told Baz that I thought he might be the one to have to break the spell, he went even paler than usual. You couldn’t have been more obvious.”

Snow wouldn’t look at either of us, his face glowing bright red. My mind was whirring. Thinking about it now, there were plenty of little moments like the one that Bunce had named. Moments where I had felt something whenever Snow was mentioned or around. Moments that I had tried my best to forget.

“I can’t believe we did it,” Bunce said quietly, a grin taking over her face. “We’re the  _ first ones _ in recorded history to ever break this spell. We’re… Well, we’re legends.”

“Is that any surprise?” I asked.

Bunce rolled her eyes at me. “I’m serious. This is huge. We haven’t even graduated yet, and we’ve already managed to break an unbreakable curse.”

“About that,” said Snow, laying his hands out face-down on the table. “I’ve been thinking, and… Well, there’s something that’s been bothering me.”

Bunce and I looked at each other and waited for him to go on.

“The whole thing about the curse was that it was supposed to be broken by ‘true love’s kiss’, and that’s why no had ever broken it before.” He bit his lip. “Do you think that was what did it? Do you really think that Baz and I are… true loves?”

Bunce crossed her legs. “Honestly? It’s hard to say. On the one hand, every source we found said that only ‘true love’s kiss’ would break the curse…”

I swallowed and spared a glance at Snow.

“But on the other hand,” she continued, looking back and forth between the two of us, “since the curse has never been broken, there’s no hard evidence to back that up. Maybe the curse was broken by true love’s kiss. Or maybe it was broken by a genuine kiss that wasn’t  _ trying _ to break the spell.” Bunce shrugged. “There could be any number of possible explanations, and no way to know for sure which one is right.”

I couldn’t help but feel a little relieved by her explanation. Sure, I was glad the spell was broken—and I  _ had _ enjoyed the kiss—but “true love” was a lot for a seventeen year old vampire to think about. 

A thought suddenly struck me that made my mood sink considerably.

“Oh, shit,” I said, “I’m going to be expelled.”

“No, you’re not,” said Snow confidently.

Bunce knit her brow. “Simon, Baz  _ cursed  _ you. And even if we could tell the Mage that he broke the spell, it wouldn’t matter. He clearly broke school rules.”

“Yeah,” Snow said, “but he won’t be expelled.”

I snorted. “You seem assured.”

“I am,” he said. “Because if you leave, I leave, too.”

“ _ What? _ ”

“It’s simple.” Snow counted his points off on his fingers. “One: The Mage knows I’m the Chosen One. Two: The Mage needs the Chosen One at Watford for the good of the World of Mages. Three: He’ll do anything in his power to  _ keep  _ me at Watford, at least until the Humdrum is defeated, which I’m guessing won’t be until this entire thing blows over. Four: If I threaten to leave Watford if you’re expelled, then the Mage  _ can’t _ expel you. Therefore, you’re safe so long as the Mage believes he’d be in danger of losing me if you left.” He sat back in his chair, looking proud of himself.

“Would you really leave Watford if Baz was expelled?” asked Bunce.

“Oh, Merlin, no,” said Snow, “but all I need to do is make the Mage  _ think  _ that I would. He wouldn’t risk losing the Chosen One, not for something like this.”

“Well, fuck, Snow,” I said, raising my brows. “That’s the cleverest thing I’ve ever heard you say.”

“It still might not work,” said Bunce, looking between the two of us. “What if the Mage sees through your bluff?”

“Well,” said Snow, “then I do have a backup plan.” He turned to me. “Remember what happened in the Mage’s office yesterday?”

Of course I did; I doubted I would ever forget it. Snow had been about ten seconds from going off and completely decimating everything in a ten kilometer radius. But why would he bring it up, unless…

I cocked an eyebrow. “You would  _ threaten the Mage _ with your magic?”

Bunce’s jaw just about hit the floor. “ _ Simon _ !”

“Not seriously,” he said quickly, “and not if I can convince him otherwise. But… it would work. I think the Mage is a little afraid of me.”

“But why?” I asked. “Why would you help me? I’ve done nothing but antagonize you for years. Why would you want me to stay at Watford?”

“Because,” said Snow, “over the past few days, I realized that… We kind of work well together.” He let out a long sigh. “Whether we like it or not, the Humdrum’s coming for us.  _ All  _ of us. And when that fight comes, I’d much rather have you with me than against me. I need you on my side, and that means I need you at Watford.”

“You’ve thought a lot about this,” said Bunce quietly.

Simon shrugged. “Someone has to.”

“So we’re okay,” I said. “For now, at least.”

“Yeah,” Snow said, smiling up at me. “We’re okay.”

***

We went back to our dorm after lunch. Neither Snow nor I had much schoolwork to do, so we spent most of the afternoon in silence; me, reading a book, and him trying to work on the conjugation of Greek verbs. I had grown used to spending time with neither of us talking, but for some reason that day felt different. The tension between us was so thick that it was practically suffocating. I caught him staring at me a few times—though I wouldn’t have been looking if I hadn’t been sneaking peeks at him myself. I think both of us knew what conversation we needed to have, but we both kept daring the other to say it first.

After a few hours of our strange game, Snow finally slammed his notebook on his bed and turned to me.

“That’s it,” he said. “I need to ask you something.”

I took my sweet time marking my place in my book and setting it down next to me. “Sure,” I said, trying to sound cool and collected.

“Why did you follow me into the Wavering Wood?”

I blinked; of every question he could have asked, I hadn’t expected this one to be first. “I… Fuck, Snow, I don’t know. Why?”

“It was just odd,” he said, growing a little rosy and giving a shrug. “How did you know I’d be there?”

“I saw you running across the lawn. I guess… I guess when I saw you, I just kind of assumed the worst and ran in after you.” For some reason I found it hard to breathe. “What about you? Why did you go there in the first place?”

He shrugged again. “I wanted to be alone, and it just felt better to be there than anywhere else.”

I nodded and we shared a long moment during which neither of us talked. I bit my lip and tried to gather the courage to ask the next question.

“Snow,” I managed, “why did you kiss me?”

His cheeks bloomed pink. “I… I mean, I don’t know. I didn’t really think about it.”

It felt familiar to laugh at him. “Crowley, Snow. Do you ever think about anything?”

He flushed deeper but grinned. “I mean, it didn’t feel like I was making a decision. I just… did what felt right in the moment. I didn’t think about the consequences.”

“I understand,” I said, crossing my legs and trying not to look like this statement got to me any more than it should have.

I stared at my hands and waited for him to say something, because I didn’t trust myself to talk without sounding like a total git.

“Baz,” he said finally, “do you think Penny was right?”

I peeked up at him through my lashes. “About what?”

“About… well, about  _ us _ . Because I’ve been thinking, you know,” he said, turning to me. “When we first got into all of this—when you said it could only be broken by the person I love most. The textbook was where we got the whole true love idea.”

I thought back over the events of the past few days—it had seemed like a lifetime ago that I had cursed Snow. “Yeah,” I said slowly, “I think I remember that. Why do you bring it up?”

“Well, maybe it was something like that. Maybe you were sort of right about it having to be broken by someone I feel strongly towards.”

“Snow, until this morning you hated me.”

“Well, yeah,” he said, “but that’s the point. It wasn’t love or anything like that, but I felt strongly towards you.  _ Very  _ strongly.” He scratched the back of his neck. “I hated you more than I loved Agatha, or Penny, or anyone else.”

“I’m flattered.”

“I’m serious, Baz,” he said, swatting my arm. “I don’t really know where I am right now. I don’t know whether I still hate you—I don’t  _ think  _ I do, at least. But I think we can agree that being ‘true loves’ seems a little bit… much.”

I nodded. He was echoing what I had been stressing over for the past several hours, and hearing him say it out loud brought an unprecedented sense of relief.

He leaned his head back and studied our ceiling. “There are a lot of questions to answer.”

“It feels like there always are,” I said. “Can I ask one?”

He shrugged and met my eyes. 

“Are you going to tell Agatha? About… us?”

Snow visibly swallowed. “Is there an us to tell her about?”

“I mean, about our kiss. She knows about the curse, Snow, and she knows that someone would have had to break it.”

He let out a sigh. “I’m not sure yet. The Agatha situation is… a little rocky. I don’t think she’d take the news very well.”

I snorted at the thought. Agatha, who had been dating Snow until just that morning, who had been giving me suggestive looks for years, finding out that Snow and I had kissed? The mental image was almost comical.

“We don’t have to tell people,” I said. “Bunce already knows, and Ebb and the Mage will need to be told that we managed to break the spell, but we don’t have to tell them how. And almost everyone else thinks you just had a nasty case of laryngitis.” I picked at my bedsheet. “We don’t have to tell people. About us. If you don’t want to.”

He smiled a little bit. “Is there an us to tell them about?”

“That’s…” I swallowed and kept my eyes trained on my bed. “That’s a really good question.”

Neither of us said anything for a long moment.

Snow cleared his throat. “I mean… Do you  _ want  _ there to be an us to tell them about?”

Oh, Crowley.

“I don’t know,” I said. “I don’t know what I want anymore.”

“Oh,” said Snow.

“I mean, last week we were  _ enemies. _ Now we’re… well… I don’t know what we are anymore, but after this morning, I don’t think ‘enemies’ is accurate.” I dared a glance up at him. “I don’t know where to go from here.”

He came and gently sat himself across from me, on his bed. “I don’t either,” he said. “But… I don’t want things to go back to what they were before, Baz. I’m sure of that, at least.” 

I focused my gaze on this one mole he had on his cheek, trying to muster the courage to say what I knew I wanted to say. “Maybe… Well, maybe we don’t have to put a label on things quite yet.”

Snow raised his eyebrows at me.

“Neither of us want to be enemies,” I said, “but making things, er,  _ official _ seems a little much. So let’s just… do what we’re comfortable with. Go at our own speed. See how things work out.”

“Do you really think that’ll work?”

“Aleister Crowley, Snow,  _ nothing  _ about this works. We’ve been sworn enemies since we were eleven, and now you’ve got the bright idea to start kissing me in the Wavering Wood.”

“Hey, you kissed me, too.”

I waved my hand, but couldn’t stop a smile from taking over my face. “Irrelevant.”

He grinned and leaned forward. “So what are we?”

“We’re what we’ve always been, Snow. We’re roommates.”

“Roommates,” he said, pulling closer. “That’s all?”

I smirked and kissed him, softly and slowly, bringing my hands up to caress his face. He melted into me, grasping my shirt with both hands like he was afraid of letting me go. I couldn’t help but smile against his mouth, feeling like there was sunshine inside of me.

I pulled away for just a moment, tucking my hair behind my ear and tearing my gaze from his lips to his eyes. “You know,” I purred, curling my fingers against the nape of his neck, “you are  _ quite  _ the roommate.”

Simon Snow, the Mage’s Heir, the Chosen One, the greatest mage of our time, only rolled his eyes and grinned before swooping back in for another kiss.

It felt good to know that I could still leave him speechless.


End file.
